LTA’s evaluation of a change in ERP system this week peaked my interest. They are looking move from a single charge entry fee to one that is distance based. There are many sides to the coin here when it comes to a specific set of roads that undergo such charges but I thought it would […]

Asia’s rise to prominence in the past two decades has yielded a flurry of discussions by economists, international relations scholars and even historians. We are all excited about the prospect of something new, yet worried about what this means for global stability. Some want Asia to learn to be like the West so that they […]

Groupon’s stock plunged after news of a poor earnings call. After a 25% plunge, the sacking of Andrew Mason leveled things off a little but questions should be asked of its business model. Groupon is essentially a middle man with a crowd sourcing flavor. Instead of individual companies running their own discounts, they aggregate and bring it […]

Google is the one unique tech company that can claim to have the largest user base in the world. You can break things down in any way you like, traditional PC and Mac users or mobile consumers, young and old, businesses and individuals. These categories go on and Google is front and center of the […]

For thousands of years, nations were important building blocks of civilizations. As human beings, we found the need to cooperate and work with one another. We built societies, grouped people together for some mutually beneficial gain. May it be fishing villages or tiny states, we lumped together for necessity. Safety in numbers, prosperity through cooperation and basically economies […]

Singapore’s population is going to grow and there’s no stopping it. We can slow down the growth rate but we cannot turn back. With the current long term policies in place, reversing our population figures will do more harm then good. It is possible to maintain our standard of living with population decline but not […]

Apple did not enjoy usual warm coverage by the press this year with more negative pieces being churned out against what is usually the tech media’s darling. There’s no denying that Apple is maturing or as some would have you believe – already matured. The biggest question in mind is – what can Apple do […]

The death of Aaron Swartz, a renowned 26 year old computer genius, has brought the spotlight back on the problem of public goods. Before delving briefly into the difficulties posed by goods and services deemed to be freely accessible, you should read up on the young man if you haven’t. He has a long list […]

Gifts. You’re going to hear, see and hopefully receive lots of them in this coming month. Consumerism has turned Christmas into a frenzy of feasting and gift giving. Not that I am complaining about it. Economists have long struggled with this behaviour. Joel Waldfogel is probably best known for writing ‘The Deadweight Loss of Christmas”. […]

I remember a section on advertising being placed at the end of a chapter in my very first economics text book. It was placed there to provoke discussion but no one really bothered because it wasn’t examinable. That’s how we Singapore students are like anyways. Yet, advertising is such a core feature of our economy […]

The key takeaway from Apple’s event was the iPad Mini. The interesting part of the Mini’s launch was its size and pricing which demonstrated the market segment that Apple was targeting. During its presentation, Apple went nuclear on Google’s Nexus 7 but the Mini’s product placement doesn’t specifically match the Nexus 7. So, what exactly […]

Today’s record breaking jump from the stratosphere is yet another entry in both history books and the continual desire of mankind to break limits. Felix Baumgartner broke records in a daring jump that pushed the limits of science. In a sense, he was a guinea pig the same way men like Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong […]

Personal computer sales are limping along. These include both Windows and Macs. Manufacturers affected range from Lenovo, HP, Dell and even Apple. There’s a reason why Apple doesn’t push sales figures of its Macs. It is tanking just like every other PC. Why? Sensationalists will have you believe that we are in a ‘Post-PC’ world […]

Piracy is illegal but I’m willing to bet you’ve done it before. Music piracy was all rage during the IRC, Napster and KaZaA days. Then software piracy took over with shady shops in Sim Lim Square and around neighborhoods getting busted regularly for hawking applications and games mainly for the PC. Move forward ten years, piracy is […]

Within 4 hours, I queued, received, sold and banked $1,240 from the sale of Apple’s new flagship – its iPhone 5. The following account is an experience that I hope people in the market hoping to make a quick turnaround will find useful. The Queue – Balancing Time & Productivity I woke up […]

Geeks love updates. Mainstream users and enterprise technicians hate it. It is no surprise that we have been and will continue to move head first into digital world without version numbers and visible updates. The subscription model is looming. Google’s Experiment Google is the company that made such a process popular. It is implemented […]

Arsene Wenger celebrated his 16th anniversary at Arsenal yesterday. I am not an ‘Arsene Knows’ type of fan and many a times a critic of his methods but there are multiple areas I admire this old wrinkled professor for. Principles Arsene is a man of values and principles. He is not an explosive figure like […]

With the court rooms often filled with design based technology patents, it seems to be a good time to break down where the main schools of design are and how technology has made way for competition in product design. The First Design War (Technology) Before there were PC wars, the more fundamental battles in […]

This might sound strange to most Singaporeans. For decades, everything Singapore was tied to its economy. Incredible growth, one of the four proud Asian Tigers / Dragons, an economy that weathered the Asian Financial Crisis and then a decade later a Lehman led version. Singapore has been an economist’s dream. Much credit has to be […]

The reliance on economic sanctions to solve everyday international problems is ridiculous. While I believe in a free market economy, the reckless use of this mechanism as the first alternative is baffling. It has been a worrying trend of late that to every problem the international community faces, they’ll just hash an economic sanctions package […]

When we built the internet, there were high hopes surrounding this superior and extensively collaborative network. Economists saw that as a pathway to the holy grail – Perfect Information. The internet has been around for two decades, we have moved to Web 2.0. More importantly we’ve seen more than 2 billion people go online. Singapore […]